1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to vehicle brake actuating arrangements and, more particularly, to a vehicle brake control whereby the hand-brake lever and the foot-brake pedal can be independently operated without interference with each other.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Vehicles have had both safety hand brakes and foot brakes for many years. These current braking systems have linkages or cables which run from the foot pedal or hand lever all the way to the brake. Such systems require a considerable number of additional parts to convey the actuating force to the brake. In addition, the linkages or cables being strung out over considerable distances are subject to abuse and wear and can become disabled due to interference with extraneous parts or due to failure of parts of said linkages or cables.
In some systems, an individual brake actuator is actuated by more than one source, such as a hand lever and a foot pedal, but in such systems actuation of the brake actuator by the hand lever prevents actuation by the foot pedal and vice versa. In another system, actuation of the foot pedal will actuate part or all of the hand-lever linkage which can cause problems with the hand-lever linkage.